[JDEV] Jabber, the Name

Tue May 15 17:08:45 CDT 2001

Everything you told about will take months to implement. Discussion
about Jabber name will be finished until next sunday and it is quite relaxing
to talk a bit about lightbulbs between hacking mod_presence.c and mio.c ;))

No, seriously, I think you are perfectly right. I am also working for
an ISP and we are trying to use jabber as a serious instant messaging system.
We are still in developpement stage and we have a lot of problems with the
things you mentioned (docs, debug mode, etc...). 

Jabber is a young system, it has still lots of things to improve but I think it can
be only better in future (at least as long as guys like temas/stpeter/others are working 
on it :+))

/M at ciek

On Tue, 15 May 2001 16:15:27 -0400 Bill Farrell wrote:

> Just as an outside observation (donning heavy, flame-retardant clothing), it
> seems to me that time would be better spent in getting the transports to
> work correctly before worrying about what to call the thing.  Aside from the
> basic, core jabberd and JUD (the two of which are
> dead-easy-work-first-time-no-brains-needed), none (NONE!) of the other
> provided transports work and there's no CORRECT documentation to tell
> someone how to do a few simple cookbook configs.  
> 
> Even more egregiously, there are no documents telling anyone how to
> interpret debug messages.  No offence, but "Merlin casts his spell" is
> hardly useful as a diagnostic.
> 
> Or better yet, spend some time refining documentation, rather than kvetching
> about the name.  If you guys really want the project to succeed (and I
> FIRMLY believe that in time, it will), you might want to get your priorities
> in order.  Solve the problems with transports, fix the docs, provide more
> than very tiny, hastily-made, thumbnail HOWTO's; then worry about a
> cute-n-catchy name.  Believe me, most of us will pick "works" over "cute"
> any day.
> 
> As an ISP who really thinks that you have the start of a FANTASTIC product,
> I have to say there's a lot more to go in before the name goes on.  PLEASE
> don't fall into the M$ trap of coming up with a grand name, then have no
> real performance behind it.  What you have in-hand thus far is MUCH too good
> for that.  Respect the product, ensure that things that are supposed to be
> in it WORK (and work together), and somebody PLEASE come up with some
> documentation and support.
> 
> I'm sure we're not the only ISP anxiously awaiting a full-plate offering,
> complete with easily-configurable transports.  Most of us have a
> passing-but-workable understanding of XML--that's not the problem.  Even _I_
> can inspect a document for well-formedness (honest, I didn't sleep in XML
> class! Well, not ALL the way through...).  
> 
> In my defence, I've been configuring and compiling things for *nix for over
> 20 years.  If a reasonably-versed person like myself is having a great deal
> of trouble due to the paucity of "What to do when it blows up"
> documentation, think of the poor Linux newbie.  You may as well throw
> sendmail at 'em right out the box.  (Speaking of things that sorely need
> proper documentation!)
> 
> The problem is in when we attempt to configure things that would add REAL
> VALUE to the product.  Those external transports ARE real value from a
> small, independent ISP's viewpoint.  When the configs parse correctly
> (jabberd doesn't complain, that is) and are entered exactly as the example
> states (machine names excepted, of course) and the transport still doesn't
> work, there are NO diagnostics to tell us what we did wrong.  "Not
> configured" as an error message, when we can clearly see configs in the
> proper place (according to the slim HOWTO) and in the documented format,
> isn't a lot of help.
> 
> Running the jabberd in debug mode doesn't really help.  At no time did any
> ONE process complain of ill configuration with a message along the lines of
> "Hey, Stupid, fix <xxx/> in the config and this might work next time".  As
> much diagnostic as we were able to glean was "returning unhandled".
> 
> What was returning from where and why fillintheblank was unhandled, no clue
> was given.  If you want Jabber to catch on and be the thing to steamroll ICQ
> and AIM for flexibility and utility (it could, it could!), then there's a
> lot of setup work left to do.
> 
> Folks, I'd really like to see the Jabber project continue to evolve.  Rather
> than waste bandwidth on picking names and logos, we might want to focus on
> "what would make Jabber the next Ubiquitous Product On Every Desktop".  Like
> diagnostics and config help.
> 
> What can we do to pitch in and help?
> 
> With deepest respect,
> Bill
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Flora Brunas [mailto:floraaquino at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 2:37 PM
> To: jdev at jabber.org
> Subject: RE: [JDEV] Jabber, the Name
> 
> 
> Dixon,
> 
> Check out what Jabber.com has to say about the Jabber
> project being open source:
> 
> http://www.jabber.com/open_source/enterprise.shtml 
> 
> An open source project is a community.  Communities
> aren't controlled by a single corporation, which is
> why the Jabber Foundation is a great thing and the
> Foundation should control the use of the name
> "Jabber".
> 
> Flora
> 
> 
> --- Dixon Canario <Dixon at vitalcontact.com> wrote:
> > Why don't you all start your own project give it a
> > name, and make it open
> > source..... and then you will probably feel the same
> > way that the people
> > that work so hard to make the "jabber" name come to
> > live and that are also
> > sharing this project with all of us... for free....
> > and are now trying to
> > make money out of it..... why don't you just make
> > your own project and give
> > it your own name......  why you all have to be
> > trying to steal what belongs
> > to "Jabber.com" yeah is open source....  but it is
> > still their stuff.... if
> > you all keep complaining about something none of us
> > did or came out with the
> > idea of it..... they might just make it
> > "Closed-Source" ..... I just think
> > that all the ones talking about... Why Jabber owns
> > the name.. and all that
> > crap about the name... are nothing but a bunch of
> > Selfish .... Son Of
> > #@%!%.................. tha's just my opinion... so
> > stopped sending stuff
> > about  the Damn name and let's talk about coding
> > development and taking
> > Jabber to the next level...........
> > 
> > Peace Everyone.. and yes I'm ready for the
> > HEAT.......... so bring it on....
> >   -----Original Message-----
> >   From: jdev-admin at jabber.org
> > [mailto:jdev-admin at jabber.org]On Behalf Of
> > Jens Alfke
> >   Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 12:43 PM
> >   To: jdev at jabber.org
> >   Subject: Re: [JDEV] Jabber, the Name
> > 
> > 
> >   On Monday, May 14, 2001, at 12:48 PM, Flora Brunas
> > wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >     Is Jabber.com the only commercial company
> > allowed to
> >     use the word "Jabber" for their company names
> > and
> >     products? This is not fair.
> > 
> > 
> >   I agree. And this brings up a tangential question:
> > what are the rules for
> > Jabber clients' use of the Jabber "lightbulb" logo,
> > and where can I get a
> > canonical image of the logo to use in my client? I
> > haven't seen any on the
> > websites (wherever the logo appears it's joined into
> > some other artwork in
> > such a way that extracting it would be beyond my
> > artistic skills.)
> > 
> >   -Jens
> > 
> 
> 
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